Superguanajas (the multitask women)

Before I start, I have to explain the meaning of this adopted Canarian word: “guanajo/a”. It comes from the arahuaco language and it´s used in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. It designates contemptuously a silly and/or stupid person*… Pronounce it like this: “supawanahas”…

This Sunday I finally felt down: it´s not easy to assimilate that you are going to be without a job and you have to look for another one in no time. You feel guilty because you think you are responsible of many matters at the same time and you want the people that surrounds you to be happy… and you believe (with no scientific explanation at all) that you take all the merits. Normally this weight on my shoulders is not a problem but it seems that my body needed to say “Enough is enough!” and I had to cry to relieve tension. Yes, I am a woman after all: when I finished crying, even when I didn´t have a solution to my problem, I felt relieved. I know that men do not understand this reasoning, which has no reason at all, but I reccommend you to do what my partner did: he just held me in his arms. We do not need anymore (Damn! I should have made you pay for this piece of advice!)

Yesterday afternoon I laid down on the couch watching realities. In one of them you can be witness of the birth of a baby and what surrounds it. One of the cases I saw was about a couple that already had a two year-old baby and they were expecting their second kid. The father on one side was worrier about his best friend´s stag night than the birth of the baby; the mother on the other side, histeric, weighing up everything, with unhealthy remorse, because she felt she wasn´t doing things as well as she would like to. Her guilt made me feel sorry for her. Finally, we have the typical end: the mother tied up with both babies (thank God her mum was not as histeric as she was and she helped her out); The father went to the stag night one day after his second and last baby was born but only had a beer and came back early home. In the end, the father toed the line and colaborated with her: he took care of the two year-old baby so she could go to the gymn to get fit. When the programme finished, I was exhausted.

I decided to take Venus for a walk, trying to stop thinking about all I have to do to be a superwoman: the house, my daughter´s school, pay my debts, work, look for a job, recycle myself, learn new things, do exercise, make myself up, be a good cook, be a good citizen, good manager, good friend, good lover, good daughter, good mother, good pack leader… I took my new MP4 and I heard my all-time favourite band´s music (Duran Duran), went out and cleared my head a bit. I could do it and I was happy for a moment: I needed nothing else.

I saw a friend of mine during my walk. Last week she was sick and she didn´t think about going back to work yet, even when she is self-employed and this is one of the best seasons for her job (all of us spend what we don´t have on Christmas time). When I sat down with her she explained me she has suffered from ansiety´s attacks because all she had to get out in her daily life: house, husband, daughter, job… Many women don´t know how to explode by crying and she´s one of them. Luckily I can. She needed to have acupuncture done on her.

At the end, we agreed that today´s women have a strong pressure to be a superwoman: a woman that is successful in all aspects of her life… When we were saying goodbye, she declared this statement: “We are not Superwomen but Superguanajas!”. I guess I don´t have to explain the meaning of this word right now.

There are women that think the best situation is to stay at home and wait for the men to bring the money. The complications are not many and you don´t have the responsibility of all the spendings on top of your head… The only thing you have to worry about is to take care of the rest of the family, to be a good cook, mum, wife, friend, lover, household manager, stunning, take care of yourself, have the house tidy and clean… It´s not too much, isn´t it?

If you ask me, I don´t want to renounce to my work career. I come from a family full of fighter, brave and hard-working women. I couldn´t be at home, when I can develop other aspects of my personality in a job. I bought the idea of a more fulfilled woman is the one that also works outside home… The truth is that she is more tied up also!

I didn´t have a New Year´s good intention but this is going to be one of them: I will stop being a “Superguanaja” trying to be a Superwoman and be a simple mortal, with her defects and obsession. To achieve this good intention I have to let other help me more, I have to learn not to wait for everything to be as I expected, not to be perfectionist with myself, be thankful with what life has given me so far and leaving away those remorse feelings… This only good intention is going to take me a long time, so I´m not promised myself anything else…